Welcome to Medical News Today

Healthline Media, Inc. would like to process and share personal data (e.g., mobile ad id) and data about your use of our site (e.g., content interests) with our third party partners (see a current list) using cookies and similar automatic collection tools in order to a) personalize content and/or offers on our site or other sites, b) communicate with you upon request, and/or c) for additional reasons upon notice and, when applicable, with your consent.

Healthline Media, Inc. is based in and operates this site from the United States. Any data you provide will be primarily stored and processed in the United States, pursuant to the laws of the United States, which may provide lesser privacy protections than European Economic Area countries.

By clicking “accept” below, you acknowledge and grant your consent for these activities unless and until you withdraw your consent using our rights request form. Learn more in our Privacy Policy.

Please accept our privacy terms

We use cookies and similar technologies to improve your browsing experience, personalize content and offers, show targeted ads, analyze traffic, and better understand you. We may share your information with third-party partners for marketing purposes. To learn more and make choices about data use, visit our Advertising Policy and Privacy Policy. By clicking “Accept and Continue” below, (1) you consent to these activities unless and until you withdraw your consent using our rights request form, and (2) you consent to allow your data to be transferred, processed, and stored in the United States.

Get the MNT newsletter

Email an article

You have chosen to share the following article:

How elderberries can help you fight the flu

To proceed, simply complete the form below, and a link to the article will be sent by email on your behalf.Note: Please don't include any URLs in your comments, as they will be removed upon submission.

We do not store details you enter into this form. Please see our privacy policy for more information.

Stressed at work? Transcendental meditation may help

People who practice meditation often hail it as a fix for anything from anxiety to physical pain. Indeed, some studies suggest that it may improve our sense of well-being. Now, new research finds that one type of meditation — transcendental meditation — can relieve stress and boost emotional intelligence.

Transcendental meditation can help you feel less stressed and boost your emotional intelligence, a new study shows.

The practice of meditation does appear to bring many benefits, and recent studies have supported this idea.

There are many different kinds of meditation, and each person may find that certain techniques work for them while others do not.

Still, a new randomized controlled trial from the Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education (CWAE) in San Francisco, CA, finds that one particular type of meditation, known as "transcendental meditation," is effective when it comes to relieving stress and improving a person's emotional intelligence.

The CWAE are a nonprofit organization who state that their mission is to "optimize educational performance, reduce violence, stress, and substance abuse, and improve the psychological wellness of students, faculty, and administrators."

Verifying the benefits of meditation

Last year, a survey from the American Federation of Teachers indicated that 61 percent of educators were stressed at work, while 58 percent would describe their mental health as "not good."

The CWAE were interested in learning whether certain much-praised meditation techniques would allow teachers and other staff to feel less stressed and more attuned to their students.

"Workers, especially in our school districts, are under a growing amount of stress and asked every day to find solutions to increasingly complex problems," notes Laurent Valosek, lead author of the study and executive director of the CWAE.

"This study demonstrates the benefits of meditation in the workplace."

Laurent Valosek

"And with a growing body of research on the value of emotional intelligence and the harmful effects of psychological stress, organizations are looking to give their employees tools for reducing stress and developing EQ [emotional quotient] competencies like centeredness, self-awareness, and empathy," Valosek adds.

Meditation lowers stress and boosts EQ

In a recent randomized control study, CWAE investigators worked with 96 participants who were central office staff at the San Francisco Unified School District. They report their findings in The Permanente Journal.

The participants practiced transcendental meditation — a type of meditation that involves repeating a mantra — over a period of 4 months.

At the end of this period, the researchers found that those who had practiced transcendental meditation reported less perceived stress and improved emotional intelligence when compared with the control group.

The researchers used the Perceived Stress Scale and the Emotional Quotient Inventory, both of which use self-assessment, to measure these outcomes.

Experiencing stress can significantly alter a person's mental and physical health, as can their level of emotional intelligence, or EQ.

Emotional intelligence refers to an individual's ability to be attuned to their own and others' emotions and to be able to recognize and label each emotion appropriately.

Researchers have suggested that people with high EQ measures are better able than others to manage their own emotions, which they also tie in with these individuals having better mental health overall.

The current trial indicates that not only do people who practice transcendental meditation have higher EQs, but they also specifically show improvements in up to five of the six characteristics of emotional intelligence — namely, general mood, stress management, adaptability, intrapersonal awareness, and reality testing.

Importantly, the measure of these improvements appeared to be dependent on how much the participants meditated. That is, those who meditated on a regular basis reported higher EQ and lower perceived stress than peers who meditated less often.

2019 Healthline Media UK Ltd. All rights reserved. MNT is the registered trade mark of Healthline Media. Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.